Cyborg Memoirs
by number18
Summary: One day, the cyborg girl watched the stars with her brother, the next she was all alone in a pile of rubble. From having the world under your merciless thumb to being just another face in a sea of warriors. The world is strange in someone else's dream...
1. 01: resurrection

Discomfort. 

She felt frozen in her body. Her joints were stuck in place, her eyes were refusing to open. She thought perhaps she should go back to sleep. But her awareness was beginning to return in a rapid swirl of revival. Soon she was struggling to regain movement. A bitter taste sat behind her cracked lips. Slowly, she fought against the sharp pains of movement and pushed herself up to sit. She felt as though the very nano-machines injected to enhance her muscles were rending them apart now; a single hand rising to try and clear the grit blurring her eyes. All around her were crumbling, jagged shapes. Long, dark and winding snakes jutted out from them as far as she could see, and she could not clear her eyes no matter how she rubbed into them, no matter how many times she tried to run a diagnostic check. In fact, she was not receiving any system feedback at all. Desperately she tried to make sense of her surroundings, to make the blurred images she was receiving focus. A fierce panic began to take hold of her.

Hunching forward, gingerly she wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her head on them. A heavy strand of cornsilk hair fell into her eyes, and after a moment of debate, she gave rise to an aching arm to brush it out of the way. There was no familiar softness when she went to pass her fingers through her hair, however. Instead she was met with a matted, tangled clump. Her thoughts were starting to turn to anxious pleadings -- where was she, how did she get here? Where was Seventeen?

Where was he? Her brother ... he had been at her side only moments ago. They had been ... they had been ... Where had they been before? She couldn't remember, couldn't recall anything of what might have happened before waking here in this abandoned place. Was it abandoned? Eighteen hadn't picked up any signs of life. But wait, how could she? None of her systems were functioning. This frightened her far more than she wanted it to, so dependent had she become on the stream of information that played on the back of her retina.

Straightening up, she began to take notice of her surroundings, only to be violently seized with a shooting pain in her neck. She gasped at the sensation, a hand flying up to her nape. What did this all mean? All this pain? Were her few cybernetics still functioning properly? What if they weren't? The grip around her knees tightened as she shrunk down into herself. The ever-increasing bombardment of terrified questions would not stop.

"Seventeen? Seventeen, where are you?" she shouted out into the air, the only way it seemed her mind would stop its panicked convulsions.

"Seventeen! Are you there!"

No response. Not even any sounds of shuffling, not even the sound of an animal scurrying. What was going on? _You're all alone! All alone and broken with no help!_ The thoughts continued to pound on her modified mind, unceasingly, ever-mounting as though she were going to burst forth in a madness if they could not be calmed.

She had to get up. She had to stand up and look around. Maybe Seventeen was nearby and unconscious like she had been. Placing her hands onto the cold blocks of broken stone, she leaned forward to push herself up from her patch of lesser debris. Sucking in a harsh breath, she straightened herself, taking hold of the spiraling snake of iron beside her. The blurriness would not leave her her snow-shadow eyes and still she was unable to discern most of the shapes that were before her.

"Focus," she said aloud. The word appeared vibrant in the darkness of her chaotic mind. She ran over each curve of the letter, the sound each one made on its own, and made the word grow until it was blocking out all other thought. Focus, she would, until she could see properly again. She could see enough right now, though, and began to make her way forward into the unfamiliar. The click of her boot heels underneath seemed to be the only thing that _was_ familiar in this place. Eighteen could barely piece together what kind of place this might have been. There were no buildings that she could see. Everything was rubble, fallen upon itself in high, dangerous piles. The sky was a dull blue stretch, touched here and there with thin, wispy lines of cloud. The sun hung behind her, low in the sky.

"Seventeen, can you hear me!" she shouted out into the still air once again. Her voice felt painfull scratchy and harsh, ground out from her parched throat. Again, Eighteen took a wary survey of her surroundings, which were becoming, ever so slowly, slightly more defined.

"BRUH--!"

Eighteen's voice caught in her throat as she whipped around, fists up in defense. She had been touched. Who was it behind her? An orange bandana! Oh, but ... her body was frozen again. And the world had become fuzzy around her. Then black.

Seventeen rushed to catch his sister's limp body.

* * *

"Please ... don't stop," Eighteen whispered dreamily, her hand catching a slender wrist. Her eyes fluttered open. It was dark and warm here. Relieved, she let out a gentle sigh to see her brother hovering above her, running his hand through her hair once again. She could _see_ him now. She felt at rest in his embrace.

"Sister," he said softly with that smooth, almost sedative voice, "I ... almost didn't think that was you." _Why not?_ Eighteen thought. Was she that badly injured as to be unrecognizable? Quizzically, she looked up at his boyish face from his lap. Seventeen's gaze fell down on her at the same time, an uncommon expression of sorrow and relief on his face. He looked forward then, into the dimly lit room they seemed to be in, and continued to brush back the hair from her forehead.

"Seventeen ... ? Why didn't you think it was me? Was I --" His hand fell to her mouth, sharp eyes following suit.

"I thought you had been destroyed," he said solemnly. Eighteen's eyes narrowed on her brother's, pushing his hand aside.

"Why on earth would you ever think I was _destroyed_?" she snapped at him. "When have I ever been so much as scratched, Seventeen? When? What are you _talking_ about?" What _was_ he talking about? They had long since killed off those nuisances, those pathetic humans and their saiyan comrades. The only one left of their lot was nearly incapable of defending himself when he sought out her and her brother, and they only kept him alive for amusement. She was annoyed; what kind of stunt was he trying to pull on her? Then Eighteen realized that he looked too serious to be fooling around. "Seventeen?"

Her darker half pulled her up, wrapping his arms around her, pressing his chest against her back. She felt the soft skin of his cheek resting against the curve of her shoulder. Maybe the brat's mother had done something to them in their sleep? She couldn't recall. All Eighteen could remember was the playful rush of fighting with her brother, and later sitting by a burning car together in an industrial park, looking up at the stars. Surely, if they had dozed off, she would have awakened at the presence of an intruder. They didn't need to sleep like normal humans.

"Seventeen?"

"Yes?" he asked gently, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Why did you think I was destroyed? Did something happen to us? Was it Bulma?"

"Bulma? _Who_? What? No, Eighteen. I don't know what you're talking about."

"How can you not know what I'm talking about," she said, annoyed tone creeping into her voice.

"I don't know. Maybe...maybe you're just recalling some of your memories before Dr. Gero deactivated us."

His arms squeezed her tightly. Eighteen's muscles tensed at this, more so from her brother's words than his actions. Irritated from his vague responses, she tore away from his arms and stood, turning to face him.

"Seventeen, I don't _know_ what you could possibly be forgetting here, but Bulma is the mother of that half-wit, half-saiyan, Trunks! He wants to kill us? His mother is a scientist? Capsule corporation? Do these words ring any bells with you?"

But her brother was only staring back at her with a startled, wide-eyed expression. His lips were quivering, trying to call some words to his tongue to respond to her.

"What IS it!" she shouted. "Why are you looking at me like that? Don't you _remember_ who they _are_?" A moment passed. Eighteen threw her arms up in frustration as her brother sat there still, unable to speak. It was then she noticed something protruding from her neck. Startled, she sat back down next to Seventeen and frantically ran a hand over her ear, tracing its shape until she felt the small, thin tube jutting out from the skin behind her ear. And as if he were anticipating this reaction, Seventeen reached over to the small table beside the bed and took hold of the mirror sitting on it.

Gently he grasped Eighteen's wrist and drew her closer to him, holding the mirror before him so that she could see herself. She noticed immediately that she had been bathed. Her hair was still wet. Turning her neck slightly, she cautiously peered at the tube in the mirror. It felt horrid to touch at first; she could feel it move inside, beneath her skin when she did, but she quickly realized where it was placed and what it might be. There was a soft blue light at its top, blinking at a casually paced interval. What was it? Instantly a menu appeared in her right eye and the name of the insertable was found. So it seemed she was on-line again. Gently, Eighteen pushed the mirror down and looked at her brother. He looked away.

"Seventeen, what happened to me?" she asked quietly.

His eyes fluttered to her and then quickly back to his lap. "Uhm ... I guess what happened was ... Dr. Gero decided that, after all that bullshit he put us through, we had been failures. We were going to be 'dismantled,' as he put it, because he had finally created a perfected specimen and we were thus unnecessary. He didn't say this to me directly, though. Well, maybe he did. Either way, I overheard him saying it when he was staring at me with my pod open. I guess the asshole forgot that when the pod doors are open, it puts us online. Maybe he forgot to turn that function off or can't read his own goddamn interface or something. He didn't even have the remote on him!

"So I got up. And I killed him, Eighteen. I took his head off. I was going to wake you up and take out his "perfect specimen" next, but there was an explosion. I saw the light from outside coming in, and then I heard voices, a few that actually registered in those databanks Gero installed. Then the place lit up around me and I was hurled against that asshole's huge main computer. When I woke up again, I could see the sun shining down on me in spots beneath the rubble. Part of my forearm was crushed in. I don't know, Eighteen. I guess they never saw me or something. When I got up finally to look for you, I couldn't find you, and all I _could_ find were bits of our pods strewn about with the other debris of the lab. The whole laboratory was completely destroyed, Eighteen. I couldn't find you ... anywhere. I barely found anything of Gero's body ..."

Seventeen's head hung weakly, his hands gripping tight on his knees as he sat, staring at nothing. Eighteen sat at his side, mouth parted in disbelief of this story, her hand, which had been idly brushing against the insertable, now still. She felt guilty for pushing him away now. But this didn't make sense to her. In the fleeting moments she had, she couldn't begin wrap her mind around it. And yet here was Seventeen, her brother, on the verge of tears before her.

"But where did you find me today if you couldn't find me then? Wasn't I showing up on your sensors?"

"I don't know!" he sobbed suddenly. "I ... I couldn't find you at all, Eighteen. No matter what I did, not even the smallest part of you! I ... today I was flying past the ruin of the old lab towards Gero's secret laboratory for some things when all of the sudden there was a blip on my scanner and _you_ were there. I saw your body lying there, in plain view right on top of the fake concrete stones and the wire! You were just _there_, like I had been overlooking you before. And ... and ... !"

He struggled to formulate the words in his head then, the mystery of his sister's appearance finally having its greater impact on him. Eighteen did not know what to make of his explanation, the sight of her brother in this state quickly taking her back to the times they spent in Dr. Gero's lab, clinging to one another for protection before he split them apart for his experiments. The yet unanswered questions fell to the back of her mind, and all she saw now was her brother in need. She pulled him into her embrace and held him close.

"It's all right, Seventeen," she cooed to him, "I'm back with you now..."

* * *

It was good to be "back" with her brother, Eighteen thought. Though as far as she was concerned, she had never really left him. She was as mystified as ever on how she had come to be unconscious and filthy in the rubble. Numerous times Eighteen had tried to tell her brother about the things she remembered before she woke up there, but he would only grow confused, insisting they had never done any such things together and that perhaps she was only having memories of their lives before Gero.

Such a notion she refused to believe, however. She had little recollection of their lives before the doctor had abducted them, and even so, in _these_ memories they were definitely cyborgs. They could fly, they were destroyers. But Seventeen was completely unaware. More than once Eighteen submitted to violent outbursts from the lack of answers to this mystery, from the docile behavior of her once vicious brother. In the end, all she could do was try not to think about it too much and enjoy Seventeen's sweet company.

Over the days that came, Eighteen had only enough strength to explore the gardens of her new home, which were covered in great blankets of snow. They lived in an abandoned mansion, Seventeen told her, which wasn't at all hard to believe. The place had a seemingly innumerable amount of rooms, not to mention a fantastic ballroom on the second level. At first, she had wondered why such a place would be abandoned, and it wasn't until she could more freely move around that she discovered a good portion of the mansion was destroyed. The ballroom was in tact, but many of the rooms were crumbling and exposed to the open air, snow coating what must have once been lush, priceless furniture. She would have liked to go out down the path to have a better look of the grounds and the mansion itself, but she was being repaired, that thing still jutting out of her neck, making it uncomfortable to even lay down.

Eighteen had little choice but to rest in solitude. Seventeen would leave for hours at a time, which she never liked, to be left alone with her thoughts. He would make his absence up to her by returning with a present each time -- her favorite food, a book, a pretty journal to write in, bound with expensive paper. Yesterday she had awakened to find two new tops and a pair of jeans sitting on her bed. And they fit her perfectly. Before this, she had been wearing Seventeen's clothing. For her new clothes, he quickly attributed the excellent fit to them merely being twins, blushing wildly at the insinuation from his sister that he had actually tried them on before he got them.

All her life she truly knew only her brother. In her memories, Eighteen recalled a young man who satisfied his every desire on a whim. He was brash and arrogant and played around too much for her tastes, and yet she followed him anyway, despite being the older of the two. This Seventeen before her in the here and now, however, felt different somehow. He _was_ her brother, she knew this from their conversations. He was still arrogant and too playful, but it was hard to adjust to him. She was used to being his shadow. Now he would only lavish his attention upon her, and more than once had been overcome with emotion. He would dote on her every word and insisted that all things be to her preference. She spent her nights curled up in his protective embrace. He was her brother, her only kin, and yet she continued to struggle to accept this new world of hers, where he had never known the thrill of his own true power. Could she have really only have dreamed of these things?

* * *

Eighteen's easy gaze shifted to her brother. He had wrapped her arm around his, leading her down the winding, snow-covered pathways that spawned from the main garden of the property. While she wore a heavy turtleneck sweater, Seventeen wore only jeans and t-shirt, apparently unaffected by the chill air that reddened her skin. Eighteen had been recovering at a rapid pace, and was now able to remove the insertable from the input jack behind her ear for the first time in the two weeks. As much as she liked to see, hear and scan clearly, the presence of the little blinking cylinder was always a nuisance.

There were times in the early morning hours when she would awaken, unable to stop herself from listening to the whirring sounds of its inner processes. Now Eighteen could stand firm without it, and though she quickly tired, her brother was always at her side. She turned against relying on the device the minute Seventeen removed it, despite losing some of the quality of her vision and the sharpness of her hearing. Just like the first times they had been enhanced, Seventeen told her, their bodies would have to grow accustomed to the changes on their own. It amazed her how much he knew about the mechanics of their altered bodies. In her memories, Seventeen cared nothing of this.

"So where do you go when you leave me, Seventeen?" A pause. She nudged him gently and suddenly his brow perked and he looked at her. How beautiful he was. His straight, dark hair whisking gently against the high cheekbones they shared, and his smooth and flawless skin pulled tautly over them.

"Well," he started, his eyes trailing to the dull blue sky above, "lately I've been going to Gero's second laboratory to retrieve parts and data to help rebuild you. It's not very far from here, but it takes a while to find what I need most of the time." He lapsed into silence.

"So is that the _only_ place you go?" she laughed softly, smiling at her brother. "Where do you get our food from?"

"Oh, that? Where do you think, Eighteen?"

"Huh?"

"Where do you _think_ I go, blondie?" he asked with a raised brow, the pale blue eyes returning to hers. She blinked and only stared at Seventeen, waiting for his response. "I get it from the grocery store, where else?" Eighteen's mouth fell open.

"The _grocery store_? Do you _pay_ for it all?"

"Of course I do, why wouldn't I?"

"_What?_"

"What do you mean, 'what,' Eighteen? Why wouldn't I pay for it?"

"You never did before. You just _took_ what you wanted before!" Seventeen looked away from her with a huff, a frown emerging on his lips.

"What the hell? Why do you always get like this?" She pulled her arm away from his and turned to confront him in the middle of their snowy path. Seventeen's hands fell to his pockets as he continued to look away with that frown. "Seven_teen_. Answer me." The lithe twin let out another huff and turned his head to look at her.

"I 'get like this' because you insist that we did things we never did! I don't ...like I don't even know where you're coming up with half this stuff, E. We _ruled the world_? Maybe Gero implanted some false memories in your brain and forgot to give them to me or something. Maybe he was conditioning you with memories like that so you wouldn't be afraid of our targets. I don't know. But I have never once done any of that stuff with you. I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind ruling the world with no opposition and doing what we wanted all the damn time, but the harsh truth is that we _can't_."

"And why can't we?" she shot back.

"Are you completely _gone_?" he retorted, mouth agape. "We can't because we'd get _killed_!"

Eighteen stared at her brother in shock. Finally her voice returned to her.

"Killed by who?"

"Anyone! Anyone on this damn planet that was strong enough to do so, E!" Seventeen scoffed at his twin. "Sure, it would be easy to beat down any human that got in my way, but those saiyans are too much hassle to bother with! Why would I bother stealing our food and chance getting my ass handed to me when I can just pay for it?" He wrinkled his nose in irritation and turned away from her, something Eighteen had seen plenty of times before when her brother was forced to talk about something he didn't want to. She stared at him.

"I don't understand. _What_ saiyans? There were only ever _four_ of them," she stated in a wary tone. Seventeen turned and faced her then, grabbing her by the shoulders. Uneasily, she glanced down to the sinew popping in his arms and then back to his eyes, which were swirling with the anger of frustration. She couldn't understand why!

_Four_ saiyans, Eighteen?" he coolly asked behind gritted teeth. "When have there ever been only _four saiyans_, dear sister? When?" The raven haired twin threw his arms aside, suddenly enraged.

"Since ALWAYS, Seventeen! Always! Goku! Vegeta! Gohan! And that _ridiculous_ Trunks! And we killed all of them but the brat! What other saiyans are there!" she demanded.

Seventeen growled suddenly, causing his sister to tense, but all he did was shove his hands back in his pockets and turn away from her again. A moment passed. A tuft of snow tumbled out of a pine's branches and onto the ground. A hand drew itself out of Seventeen's pocket and moved to his brow, massaging it. From his lips escaped a slow, steady breath, briefly gaining form in the chill air, and then he stepped forward and drew his unwilling sister into his embrace. Weakened by her excitement, she couldn't put up much struggle.

"I hate when you're angry with me," he whispered, hugging her tightly to him. "I try to have patience when you get this way, but you know how short my temper is. I'm sorry. Maybe ... I shouldn't have removed the rx-IN yet."

"No," she pleaded softly, "that has nothing to do with it, Seventeen. I just ... it's hard to believe all these memories I have are fake. I --"

"Shh...we should go back inside, you're starting to shiver." And she was, beneath that thick sweater her petite body was trembling.

"But, Sev, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what you're telling me. It sounds so unreal, how --"

"Come on. Let's just go back inside." Eighteen looked up at her brother feeling as though she had let him down with her outburst. She found herself burrowing her head into his chest, looking for comfort, though she wondered why in the back of her head.

"I'll have to insert the rx-IN again, though, so I can see if any of your processes stopped functioning, ok?" His voice felt as though it were laced with lavender, so soothing it had become to her. Eighteen nodded absently, letting herself be ruled by the calming sensation of her brother's hands through her hair.

Back inside it felt warm and cozy, and she suddenly felt much more fatigued than she had been outside. Seventeen picked her up in his arms and carried her to bed, where he lay her down with a loving care she had rarely been shown this often in her memories. Maybe they were falsehoods implanted by Gero. Was his sadism that intense? For what reason? She couldn't think of anything, nor could she find any hints that her memories were truth. Gero had performed his share of experiments in perceived reality on them, but never for such prolonged amounts of time as this. There was so much she remembered and thought she had truly experienced. Now, with each passing day, she began to question those memories. She should just accept her reality now, that she was alive and still had her brother.

Seventeen appeared in the doorway with a small device in his left hand, the little computer that monitored and analyzed the readings the rx-IN output gave. In his right hand was the rx-IN itself and a paperback novel, it looked. Eighteen wrinkled her nose at its appearance, but pushed herself up nontheless. He smiled at her. He was wearing the same t-shirt with a pair of boxers now.

Seventeen sat down and then scooted behind her on the bed, crossing his legs. His hand began to caress the skin behind her ear and before she knew it, the insertable was in. In the blink of an eye, she felt a hundred times more aware. Her fatigue was still king, however, and she happily crawled beneath the plush sheets of her bed. The lights went out, Eighteen began to doze off, and Seventeen was at her side, leaning against the headboard with his book in hand.

The next day came, warm, awakening the flaxen haired cyborg with the light pitter patter of melting ice and snow. Groggily she pushed up from the covers. A bowl of soup sat a top a tray in the place Seventeen had been. Eighteen sat up further and scanned for him, her left pupil briefly flickering an unnatural shade white. He was not there. He must have gone out again, she mused, slumping against the headboard. Oh well. He wouldn't be gone long, he never was.

Reaching across the sizeable mattress, she carefully grabbed the tray and brought it to her lap. The soup broth was still warm and she savored every sip. It never ceased to amaze her how thoughtful Seventeen was, how his attention to detail was unceasing. The Seventeen in her memories was not uncaring, but he was never _this_ affectionate with her.

Eighteen's hand rose absently to feel the insertable sticking out of her neck. It had certainly done a good job. She felt too well-rested to remain in bed, and without another moment's passing, she stuck her feet into the cat-headed slippers Seventeen had gotten for her, threw on her robe, and was up shuffling down the long, hardwood hallways of the mansion.

* * *

It was around midday when Seventeen returned home, dark red splotches on his neck where his trademark bandana was sagging. A ripe bruise sat under his eye.

"What happened to you!" Eighteen rushed to his side, pale blue eyes wide with worry.

"It's nothing to worry about, E," he said irritably, brushing her hands away from his face. Annoyed, she slapped his own hands away and began to examine his marks anyway.

"How do you figure it isn't, hmm?"

"Because I say so. Because this is how I take care of you. And let's leave it at that." Eighteen looked into his face and laughed outright.

"You take care of me by getting beaten up? I see..." Seventeen grit his teeth and began to make his way upstairs to the master bathroom of the mansion. Not about to be walked away from, Eighteen followed him in earnest. She refused to allow him to try and wander off like this, hoping she would forget her questions.

Into the bathroom she followed, taking a seat on the vanity chair as her brother went to study himself in the full length mirror next to her.

"So tell me how this happened to you." Seventeen whipped back suddenly to look at her, a snarl stuck on his mouth. His sister only put on a dry smile and waited. After a moment, Seventeen returned to examining himself in the mirror. He removed the tight-fighting shirt he wore and let it drop to the floor. Grimacing, he prodded gently at the dark bruises over his ribs. He had to tend to himself quickly; it hurt. Before Eighteen could open her mouth again he spoke.

"I get money this way."

"How?" she spat out. She could see Seventeen visibly tremble at her voice.

"Well," he began in a paced tone, "since I prefer to avoid menial labor at all costs, _fighting_ is the easiest method to getting paid, dear sister." She stared at him in silence, until he whipped around to look at her again, his sharp eyes piercing her trance.

"But who do you fight? I don't..."

"Whoever enters the tournaments, Eighteen."

"Huh?" Seventeen sat down on the edge of the tub, sighing.

"Don't you remember anything at all?"

"No, _idiot_. I --"

"Let me finish! _Fuck!_ Don't you know what a fucking martial arts tournament is? People fight. For money. If you _win_, that means you get _paid_, Eighteen. I didn't think you were that stupid, that I had to explain shit this simple to you, but holy shit, it looks like that little blinky in your neck just isn't doing a good enough repair job!"

Seventeen was glaring at her with an icy spite in his eyes. Those words stung, bit deep, and she hadn't expected him to get this angry at all. She stared back at him with wide, irritated eyes, unable to gather a response, not when he kept looking at her that way, challenging her to ask just one more question.

"Can I talk now, Eighteen? Can I explain this to you without you trying to tell me how something is? Because you need to listen. You need to listen to _me_ and forget about those dead memories of yours, ok?"

Eighteen gave a hesitant nod.

"Good. Now listen. I go fight in these tournaments for money. They pay well if you win. But it's hard to win because there are a lot of saiyans that enter. There are a lot of saiyans in general, anywhere you go. As for the tournament, this time I didn't win. I'm hurt, but I'll be fine. And when I am ok again, I'm going to enter into another tournament because we need to eat. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Again Eighteen nodded, never taking her eyes off her brother, though this time he was inches away from her face, his hands planted on the vanity table. "_Good_," he said as he straightened himself, brow still knit together with frustration. "I'm going to take a nap because I feel like shit, and then if you want, I can take you out to dinner. Does that sound ok?"

"You mean outside, out to dinner? Like a restaurant?"

"Yes," he replied, with a gentler tone this time. "Is that ok, Eighteen?"

"I'd like that."

02 index

Dragonball © Akira Toriyama. All other nonsense © number18.


	2. 02: onset

Eighteen was sitting bundled up in her robe at the kitchen table, watching the snow fall on a dark sky, when Seventeen came groggily into the room. He was wearing only his black boxers and a pair of tube socks and didn't seem the least bit chilly. Miraculously, the dark bruises over his ribs and cheek had already begun to turn from purple to yellow. Soon they would be invisible, and you would have never guessed how badly he had been beaten. Amazing what a three hour nap did for him. Eighteen felt a pang of jealousy to be at his level again, and then another that he was so beautiful, so flawless in appearance, even now. 

Her eyes were on his body as he moved about the kitchen, watching the odd, almost unlikely grace with which he moved; the gentle stride in his hips, the way his hair fell about his shoulders. At night when he would read his books next to her in bed, Eighteen often found herself tracing the veins in his arms, watching his eyes move back and forth as he read. He was her brother, utterly, everything about him so unsurprisingly familiar to her, and yet she was ever fascinated by him. She knew only him in her memories and wanted to continue knowing only him, though this world full of saiyans he spoke of did intrigue her. Were they really stronger here than they were in that world of memory? She couldn't fathom such a weakness. Eighteen had been unamused and unimpressed by those four saiyans she had known in her life. One _was_ nice to look at, but he looked better with the twisted grimace of pain on his face.

"What are you in the mood for?" he said, plopping down in the seat across from her, wearing a little grin.

"What am I in the mood for, huh? Oh, you mean for food?" Seventeen's grin turned into an all-out smirk at his sister's words. She rolled her eyes, smiling at him.

"Well, you tell me, brother. What are my choices?"

" Well," he started, "everything is about twenty minutes away, I'd say. Anything good, that is. We're in a pretty suburban area -- no, I wouldn't even call it suburban. More like..."

"The sticks?"

"Yeah," he grinned. "Except it's like an upscale version. Main street's a pretty busy place."

"There's a main street? Why'd you pick a place like this?"

"It's quiet. And I don't like living too close to the city."

"Really?" Eighteen marveled. Seventeen shot her a tired look at the exclamation. Glancing away with a sigh, he shifted back in the chair.

"Yeah, really. It's better out here." He leaned forward again, resting his elbows against the tabletop. The tone in his voice grew lighter, trying to shake off the irksome feeling that had suddenly blossomed in his chest. "There's a decent noodle place you might like," he said with a suggestive brow. "With _ambiance_." Eighteen glanced over to catch her brother wagging his eyebrows up and down at her and could barely help the grin forming on her lips.

"How far away?"

"Not that far. At the center of town, actually. This is a mostly human town, too, so you don't have to deal with any saiyans. Do you wanna go?"

_Deal with any saiyans?_ she thought to herself. What on earth did that mean? She still couldn't figure out just he was talking about when he mentioned things like that, but she knew better than to ask him. He got annoyed easily whenever saiyans were involved...

"E? Do you wanna go?"

"Oh. Hu'yeah," she muttered, coming back from her thoughts.

"All right. Go get ready," he said, pushing off the table with a gentle smile. Eighteen nodded, collecting the robe around her as she got up and started to move off to her room. "And don't take forever, just throw something on," he added with a stern, yet playful look. The light-haired sibling stopped then, a realization coming to mind.

"We're flying, right? Won't it be cold outside?"

"There should be a coat in your closet."

"A nice one?"

"Yes, a _nice_ one, Eighteen. Can't believe you just asked me that," he muttered, shaking his head. With a perked brow and growing smile, she shuffled over to her brother, giving him a quick hug before she went upstairs to see just what kind of 'nice' coat he had gotten her. With any luck, it would be that cute pea coat she'd seen in the catalogues he'd been giving her.

Seventeen remained in the room after she had left, now leaning on the island counter top, staring out of the sliding door windows. There was something about his older sister that he still couldn't quite get over, despite the passing of several weeks. She was constantly bringing up these memories of hers and it grated on his nerves. Why, he couldn't even figure out. She clung to them, challenging nearly everything he told her about the world outside their dear, abandoned mansion. The information the rx-IN took for him showed no signs of this being some sort of bizarre program or software error, but maybe there was a hidden objective he hadn't found yet (he'd make sure to check for a possibility like that next time).

Despite all this, he was relieved to have his sister back. He'd spent countless days after the destruction of Gero's lab, wandering aimlessly along the streets of Gingertown, not bothering to eat or sleep. What would he do without Eighteen? Where would he go? What was there for him now that she was gone? And then one day he was approached to enter the tournament, by some weasly promoter looking for easy money. Sure, Seventeen said. It was something to do. Maybe he'd get killed and not have to worry about himself any more ... or maybe he'd win. If he won, well, that would be nice, he thought. What did it really matter?

He left that ring battered and bruised, clothes burnt and tattered like he'd been wrestling with a lion lit on fire. But he did better than that promoter expected; he didn't get killed. He didn't like losing so badly to punk saiyans either. So there was something to life after all. When he had healed up enough to go out in public again, Seventeen went off in search of Gero's labs, looking for parts and schematics and unfinished software packs, _something_ to improve upon himself with. There were quite a number of useful things in that madman's secret lab, things Seventeen hadn't even expected to find. He visited often.

At the sight of Gero's primary laboratory, however, little more than machine fragments and rubble existed. He started looking for his sister again when he found a notebook of scientific ramblings on himself and Eighteen at the other lab. Every day the sun rose, he would look for her, evidence of her body, anything. He combed through the destruction with utmost meticulousness. And yet he found nothing, not a strand of hair, not even the metal O-ring from her boot straps. In the meantime, he found the mansion, so grandiose and ironically abandoned, and made it his home, setting up a laboratory of his own design in the enormous basement, though its purpose at the time was only to maintain himself.

He continued to fight in the tournaments, becoming an increasingly popular underdog amidst a lineup full of feral saiyans. Over time he found ways to increase his fighting prowess, much to the annoyance of his opponents, and began to win more matches, make more money, and buy better equipment. And that is how he lived his solitary life.

Until she reappeared. He hadn't even thought about furnishing the mansion until she started to complain about it ... rather, it was when he noticed the twin bed he'd been sleeping on wasn't fit for two.

"You're not even _dressed_ yet?"

Oh yeah. He should get ready.

* * *

The air that evening was cold, chilling Eighteen to the marrow in her bones as they flew along the tree tops. She wondered why her brother didn't have a car they could drive instead, but then remembered he probably didn't have the money. Or he did and just spent it all on equipment and supplies for his lab.

To her, the countryside didn't look any different from before that day Seventeen found her. She didn't know if saiyans built different houses, but she didn't see anything strange. No saiyans with fiery auras streaking through the air and brawling in the streets like her brother made mention of. She didn't see any signs of their existance anywhere, no craters or scattered landscapes. All she saw were quaint little country houses with cars resting quietly in their lots. Seventeen _had_ mentioned, though, that there weren't so many of the "half-monkey nimrods" in the burbs; they were far more numerous in the cities. She was growing a bit apprehensive as they continued on, the distances between houses shrinking more with each mile they flew.

Eventually, she saw the little roads converge into a bigger road where there seemed to be no residential buildings, and suddenly it was time to touch down. Main street. A tiny hub of bustling shops and small restuarants. And not a single person seemed concerned or frightened to see the two of them drop out of the sky. Eighteen found herself momentarily baffled, eyeing the passers-by, searching for the thick and wiry spiked hair of a saiyan. Although ... maybe they were different looking in this world.

Her raven haired brother took on an air of apprehension, also looking for the simian-tailed creatures it seemed, the way his brow had fallen low over his eyes. With few words he led his sister along the street, not bothering to stop and let her have a chance to look at the other stores. She didn't really mind, either. She only felt the numbing sting of the cold biting on her skin. After a few blocks, though, he pulled her inside one of the store fronts, the delicious, long-forgotten smell of spicy broth and noodles immediately filling her lungs. Why hadn't they just touched down here, she wondered.

"So now you see what downtown looks like, " her brother said to her with a slightly sarcastic bite. "When you're back to normal, I'll take you back to shop," he added, his voice softening. "There are a few little places you'd like." Eighteen smiled at him and squeezed his hand, causing a gentle smile to break her brother's usual harshly unamused demeanor.

A few moments later, some seats finally became available at the window of the packed noodle house, and they sat down on the high stools across from each other. Eighteen watched her brother glance at the menus sitting quietly on the table, silently amazed that they were out at dinner, just like two ordinary people. Seventeen let her stare at him as he looked idly out the window, watching passers-by in their heavy winter layers. The snow had started to fall again and looked rather whimsical in the soft glow of the town streetlights. He sat back in his chair and let a sigh escape, feeling some sort of pressure move off of his heart. He felt relieved. Here they were sharing dinner, returned back to their relatively normal lives ... though what life was like before Gero, he still dreamed about. In all the times he'd ransacked Gero's labs, he never found any video footage or logs of any kind of what he and his sister were like before. Why that madman would've kept such documentation, he couldn't know ... but it was one of the few hopeful thoughts he had.

"Hi," came a friendly, low voice, breaking the twins' wandering thoughts. "My name's Sorata. I'll be your waiter. What can I get you two tonight?" Eighteen blanked. The waiter was here already, placing down a small pitcher and two cups, and she hadn't looked at the menu once. She looked to her brother quickly, knowing how he didn't like to wait, and blurted out to the waiter before actually thinking.

"I'll have whatever he's having."

"All right then," came the voice, a vaguely amused expression on his face as he looked to Seventeen. "And what _will_ you be having?"

Seventeen's lip curled up in a faint sneer as he met the waiter's expression, spitting out his order in a low grumble. Eighteen straightened up at her brother's sudden shift in attitude and looked over to the waiter with curious eyes, half ready to apologize for his behavior. But her breath left her as she finally processed what she'd been looking at.

The waiter had a perfectly wild mane of spiked, dark hair that cascaded down his back. The muscles in his arms popped with every subtle movement, the shirt he wore tight over his frame. His shoulders were broad, his cheekbones strong and high, and as her blue eyes trailed down him, she saw a dark brown cord wrapped close around his waist, the saiyan tail. She'd never seen one up close. It was far better looking than she anticipated, smooth and well groomed (she had been expecting something more ratty), and when the saiyan turn to leave with their order, she saw the tip was dyed a sharp red color. _Amazing..._

"Well there you have it," Seventeen scoffed, eyes rolling back as he leaned on the back of his chair, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets. "Your first saiyan. He wasn't too bad, actually," he added, well-defined brow perking.

"What do you mean he wasn't too bad?" she said, coming out of her tiny daze. Seventeen looked to her and laughed.

"He's pretty scrawny for a saiyan. Plus, he's our waiter, meaning he's the kind that values money over seeing blood ... or isn't strong enough to fight for money. Or he is and just doesn't care for it." He glanced to the street outside and then back to Eighteen, who still looked mystified, much to his annoyance. "It means he won't be any trouble, though the way you were looking at him ..." He rolled his eyes.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" she asked in a shrill voice.

"Nothing," he answered quietly, sipping at the hot tea cup that had been set down moments earlier. Eighteen expected her brother to give up a little laugh, to show he was playing around, but as he began sulking into the steam of his tea, it became apparent no such thing would happen. Her expression dimmed, a small frown forming on her lips, and she sat back in her chair. How long would it take for the noodles to come up?

* * *

The night time routine that evening was, thankfully, unmarred by the brief upset at the restaurant. And what was that all about _anyway_, Eighteen asked herself. Seventeen had been quiet the whole meal, leaving his sister to wonder what she had done wrong. He was acting like a jealous boyfriend more than an overprotective brother. No, she had no right to say that. She had no idea what might have happened to him here on this earth, what grudges he might have good cause to hold against saiyans. But their waiter seemed absolutely harmless. He was just a _waiter_, she told herself. But even so (and this she did feel guilty for), the emotional response he stirred in her was ... unexpected.

In her memories, she could count the saiyan population all on one hand. They were of two distinct bloods, and even so, they looked very similar with their bulky muscles and thick necks. They didn't have tails either, though she knew they were born with them. But this saiyan, their waiter, he _had_ his tail. And it was dyed red at the tip, no less! His hair was spikey like the saiyans she'd known before, but it was styled. His build and bone structure was impressive (even attractive, though she couldn't admit that) and svelte. His demeanor calm, his posture carefree, his dress that of a typical, fashionable youth. He was everything she did not expect. No fighting uniform, no harsh voice or fiery aura. Just the dark eyes and strange hair. She had been prepared to feel a wary hatred overcome her bionic heart, but instead found herself speechless with wonder.

Seventeen noticed this immediately. She knew he noticed, and found herself caught up in the balance of tending to his feelings and trying to figure out her own. The enjoyment of eating one of her favorite meals after such a long period of recovery was wasted on this eggshell dance, but the moment the twins had left that building, Seventeen's mood lightened. He seemed just slightly apologetic underneath his mellow scowl, and even took her to a place to get some bubble tea for dessert.

Now they were wrestling around on their sizeable bed (with a firm mattress, of course) like two young kids, giggling as they rolled about on the warm, plush comforter he'd gotten. Eighteen was happy that the awkward night was fading away with their roughhousing. Tomorrow she'd wake up, hopefully feeling a little bit stronger still, and they'd spend another fine day together. They sure would, Seventeen thought to himself.

The next day was rather cool for the time of year, and Eighteen spent a fair amount of time quietly wandering outside in the snow-blanketed garden behind their fairytale abandoned mansion. Seventeen had been gone when she awakened, and while at first she was upset because of the previous night, she had to tell herself he was almost always gone when she woke up.

Sometime right after the evening had just settled down and the moon was bright in the clear sky, her raven-haired brother returned, a cold huff of breath escaping his lips as he smiled to see his sister. His face seemed happier than usual. His arms seemed to open to her the moment he stepped through the door. She hugged him tightly, and, as expected, withdrew with a concerned look on her face. The was a light smattering of blood on the bandana tied around his neck.

(careless...)

"What's this from?" she asked, gently flicking the oversized orange bandana, her other hand tucking a stray hair behind her ear. The concern in her eyes made his heart beat too fast for a second, and maybe it showed on his face because she gave him an even more questioning look, her brow perked high now.

"Take a wild guess, dear..."

"I'd rather you just tell me..." she said with a frown, already giving up on the game. His face seemed too gentle and apologetic already to give him a hard time, and she had long since learned that too many questions all at once made him irritable. He glanced down and noticed with a frown that she wasn't wearing her slippers on the cold, cracked marble floor. Gently he turned her around, slipping his arm across her shoulder as the other started to untie the bandana around his neck, and they both walked back to their room where she had come from. Eighteen was silent, her shoulders up in a huddle, her arms grasping the opposite bicep for warmth.

Upstairs, Seventeen threw the bandana in the dirty laundry. He changed out of his loose jeans, throwing them initially on the bed, but quickly remembering to put _those_ in the hamper, too. The layered shirts came off next, the white one underneath in the hamper, and the black one back against his skin. Now he was just in his boxers and black t-shirt, sitting cross legged on the floor by their fireplace. Eighteen sat on a pillow across from him, her elbows on the low, polished table, chin in hands. The book she had been reading was creased open, face down on the table, along with a small cup and pot of tea. She looked at him for a long time, and he only looked back at her. Finally she poured some more of the hot tea into the half-empty cup and pushed it over to him.

"If you got into a fight, I don't care, Sev. I _do_ ... but ultimately, I know you can take of yourself." Her brother took the cup in both hands, holding it underneath his nose, savoring the sensation of the steam rising to his nostrils. He wasn't much of a tea drinker, but there was rarely a time when he didn't oblige his sister. He took a quick sip and then set the cup down, sighing.

"Well then, I guess you have nothing to worry yourself about then. I _can_ take care of myself. And besides ... the guy that jumped me wasn't that smart." Seventeen's clear, pale eyes darted over to see his sister's reaction. Of course she didn't approve. Of course she seemed worried. Of course there was that little concerned frown on her lips. He grinned and reached out to deliver a playful little tap to her cheek, to which she put up with this time, frowning nontheless.

"I just don't get understand, though. Why do people always bother you when I'm not around? There's never any trouble when we go out _together_."

"Yeah, well that's probably because there's two of us."

"That doesn't make any _sense._"

"How doesn't it?" he shot back, finding that irritation creeping up the nape of his neck. Eighteen huffed and looked away, annoyance set into her delicate brow. "Look, here's the rundown, E. People see me. _Saiyans_ see me. They know who I am. Any saiyan worth his tail follows the tournies, and they know I hand them their asses on a regular basis. Who wouldn't want to have a piece of me, _especially_ if they see me traveling alone?"

"But that -- !"

"I don't _know_ why they don't bother me when you're around. Maybe they actually have some _respect_ for a female presence. I _don't know_, E. I just know that if they're looking for trouble, and they wanna find it in me? I'm gonna give them what they're looking for."

With that, Seventeen sneered and glanced away. Both his hands were palm down on the table now, held tensely in place. Eighteen only continued to sit there, glaring at him. He could feel the anger in her eyes burning into him. He could, out of edge of his peripheral vision, see that look. It was hard to ignore. Finally he saw her eyes shift and he looked over to see her pushing up to her feet and what seemed to be a hint of ... disappointment buried beneath her annoyed expression. His arm shot out and had her wrist in his grasp before she had a chance to go anywhere else.

"Wait."

"_Why?_"

"I'm sorry ... "

"What for?"

"Come on ... "

"Come on what? You're the same as always. You never listen to me when it _really_ matters." She tried to jerk her hand away, but his grip was too tight. She looked at him, all the more annoyed. "Let _go_ of me."

"No." Seventeen got to his feet quickly , only letting go of her wrist when he had both his arms around her. He smiled at her, that disarming, apologetic smile that she _hated_ when he used it in situations like this. Her expression shifted to another one of her little frowns and she finally gave in, stepping further into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. He hugged her gently around the waist. Things always boiled down to this. "You know ... sometimes I wish I was taller ..." he mused.

"Oh? Why's that?" she said in a tired voice.

"Hmm ... you'll think it's silly. But I wish I could look down on you." She laughed and picked up her head to look at him.

"Why? Is this another one of your silly things only men do?" Now Seventeen laughed, kissing her cheek quickly.

"Maybe ... "

"Oh _geez_ ... " she muttered, rolling her eyes. Seveteen smiled at that, his hands rising to rest on her shoulders, and at seeing his face growing somber, she rolled her eyes again.

"Hey. I'm trying to be serious now." Eighteen straightened up with a sigh.

"What is it ... "

"I'm just ... sorry. I don't like hurting you. I don't try to do it on purpose. But you know how I am. For you, E, I'd do anything. But there are some things I can't change." He watched his sister frown yet again. His squeezed her shoulders gently. "I'm serious."

"I _know_," she sighed. It seemed that frown just wouldn't leave. "There's just ... "

(just what?)

"Just what?"

"Mmm ... oh, it's nothing. I just worry about you is all."

(worry about you ... worry about the way you were back then...are you the same now?)

"I think I know that by now," he said, smiling gently. He gave her shoulders another squeeze, and then hugged her tightly. "Should we do your exercises now?" Eighteen glanced internally to the clock that was ever projected in the upper lefthand corner of her vision and promptly sighed.

"It's that time already, huh?"

"It is," he said with a little sadistic smile. "How do you ever expect to get better?"

"Yeah, I know," she said, waving a hand, stepping out of his embrace. She was still a touch colder than she would've liked to be at this point, but her brother was right. Every day he gave her exercises to do, tests to undergo in order to improve herself. At the rate they were going, she would be "normal" in just another couple of weeks. This rehabilitation time was killing her though, but what else could be done about it? Reluctantly she left her cozy terrycloth robe on the crisply made bed and went downstairs, down to the climate-controlled basement laboratory with her brother.

It seemed things were back to normal yet again.

* * *

Miles away, in the unsuspecting wind-blown fields of the quiet suburbs, not too far away from the bustle of Main street, there lay a body, face up in the snow. Blood stained the glistening purity in a tiny radius surrounding the corpse. The dark, viscous fluid was matted into the thick hair, splattered all over the corpse's chest and hands. It lay, sprawled out in a pitiful fashion, bits of skull crushed into tender smashed globules of what once had been brain matter. The eyes bugged grotesquely from the broken orbital lobes, mouth agape in an eternally horrified expression, tongue lolling out pitifully. The tail, with it's red-dyed tip, was still wrapped tightly around the waist, though it too was soaked in the quickly-chilling blood.

Nearby a fox in its winter coat crept curiously by, waiting to see if the figure was still yet to rise before it would move any closer to scavenge. This was a very good thing to find, if it was really as dead as it seemed. Saiyans were very nutritious creatures.

01 03 index

Dragonball © Akira Toriyama. All other nonsense © number18.


	3. 03: begin

03: begin

"Hey man, back off!"

"Back off? You want me to back off?" he laughed. "You want _me_ to back off you? Sorry, _asshole_, but to me, one good turn deserves another."

"What? What are you _talking_ about? Do I even know you?"

Seventeen sneered thick as he felt a rage shudder through his body. His white-knuckle grip on the man's silly t-shirt tightened and he shook him hard back into the wall the young saiyan was already backed against. "Do you even _know_ me! Hah! You really are just some pretty boy _bitch_ like I thought. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, with how you couldn't stop yourself from staring at my _SISTER!!_"

Seventeen's fist wailed across the jaw of the saiyan with his last words. He watched with deep satisfaction as the stunned saiyan slumped to his ass clutching his face, now partially caved in. The darker haired twin sneered, fists held tight at his sides, and he gave his head a quick shake, looking up to the darkening sky. This felt...far better than he anticipated.

* * *

Days passed. Eighteen was almost back to one hundred percent. Almost. As the days grew shorter, her stamina increased, her enhanced blood thickened, and her resistance to the cold air in the mansion grew strong. She was beginning to feel almost like her old self again. Almost. After that awkward night at the noodle house, Eighteen hadn't expected or dared ask her brother to go back there, no matter how good the food had been. Certainly, she was surprised when he offered to take her out again, only a few nights later. He had gotten home early that afternoon, let out of his "work" for the day at the fighter's gym. Since he'd been invited to participate in an especially "prestigious" (_haw haw_) tournament, part of the contract was a daily training routine at their facilities. He didn't really care. It was interesting enough, and they were paying him to be there (or they would be, since he was going to win, he told her).

Let's have dinner in town, he said to her that early evening, a smile on his face to find his sister another day stronger. _Dinner in town_, she thought, and found herself craving the sweet taste of those egg noodles, all wasted on a bad feeling in her stomach that night. _Lord help us if we get another saiyan as a waiter. Tch...if we go there at all._ The thoughts passed by at a bitter crawl, but she responded to him with a serene face.

"Who am I to decline such an offer?" she smirked, spinning lightly on a heel to go get dressed. Seventeen came upstairs shortly after, just as she was pulling on a pair of loose, straight leg jeans. Sort of boyish, but the cut was cute. She looked over her shoulder to her brother, who perked his eyebrow at her quickly.

"Are those mine?" he asked, genuinely curious. She laughed at him, glancing down to notch her belt (with jeans like these, you had to have them hang right on your hips or else it was pointless) .

"No, but you bought them for me, remember? From the catalogue?"

"Ohh..." he said, giving a nod, his calm blue eyes looking over her outfit as he changed into a fresh shirt. He never quite got her sense of style, even before they were cyborgs (as he could recall, anyway). But if it made her happy, hey. Now she was wearing these jeans he wouldn't have ever guessed she'd care for, belted at the hips, with a simple long-sleeved white tee underneath a looser one. It was soft green, somewhere between clover and ivy, and it reminded him of the stuff you'd see peasants wearing in renaissance pictures. What were they called? Tunics? Yeah. When did those come back in fashion? It was still pretty cute on her, he had to admit, and with a modern touch so it wasn't so...fantasy nerd. He found himself smiling at her, reminded for perhaps the third time that day that his sister was back...even if she wasn't _exactly_ like he'd remembered her. That was something he just attributed to Gero and to the state she was in when he found her. How could you _not_ come out of something like that a little messed up?

"Do you think I'll need a coat tonight, Sev?" She asked this in a casual tone, preening in the mirror standing in the room's quiet corner. Seventeen pulled himself out of his wandering thoughts and came to stand beside her in the mirror's reflection. She glanced over to him with a little smile, reaching over to swat at his fine hair, an old, playful habit he was more glad to see than he initially realized. He hugged her then, as if to say _don't ever go again_, and Eighteen must've realized this because she squeezed him tightly a moment later. The mirror silently reflected the image of the twins, with their matching snow-shadow eyes, united once more. _But what life will I lead now?_ Eighteen found it difficult to banish this obvious thought from her eyes, though it seemed of little matter. Seventeen's eyes were as far off as hers.

_Yeah...tonight's gonna be a _real_ nice "night on the town," and with _no_ stupid fucking saiyan waiter to screw it up..._

_

* * *

_

Even though Eighteen was now on the verge of being her "old self" again, she had never before been so aware of the firm mattress pressing back against the weight of her body. It was late. Outside, the moon was waning, though somehow managing to still cast a good portion of its luminous eye onto the world below. Their room had a large double door window on the wall facing the garden, and perhaps it had once led somewhere, to a balcony perhaps, but now it only led the way to crumbled stones and the unruly garden below. Seventeen didn't mind that she often liked to sleep facing the window. In fact, he preferred the darker side of the room, now that she insisted to sleep with the curtains still drawn. Her thoughts touched on his words and she let out a slow sigh against the pillow. Why was it that sometimes she could flop on the bed during the daytime and want only to sleep, and now, when she needed to sleep (well, not really, not nearly as much as before), her mind couldn't stop chattering. She couldn't stop watching the progress of the snow. She couldn't fall away from the sensation of her own skin. She couldn't stop thinking.

Since she'd come back, they had never had such a good time as they had earlier that night. Eighteen was certain Seventeen had planned it as apology for their first night out, which was (for some reason) surprising to her that he would bother to do such a thing, being the stubborn person he was. They left early, first visiting that noodle house. He ordered for them, to a pleasant little human girl with short brown hair, grinning and talking to her with a cadence that made Eighteen raise her brow at him. (Of course, when she asked if he was flirting with the girl, he vehemently denied it.) The food was good, simple, and fresh. They washed it down with two full pots of steaming hot tea, and finished off the meal with a sort of sweet rice soup (it was purple and Eighteen didn't know if she wanted to ingest purple rice at first, for the sake of what would come out later). She left feeling full, satisfied, happy with the world. Her brother had done nothing but make her laugh. On the way out, she remembered...maybe it was that saiyan's night off tonight?

Afterwards (it must've been around seven), he took her shopping, all night till they returned home. Eighteen gave a lazy glance to the fancy paper bags still sitting near the foot of the bed, just barely able to make out their forms in the darkness. God... He put up with _all_ those stores, all the "just a few more minutes," all the trying things on and wondering whether or not to get them. It was, to say the least, amazing. Thankfully, there weren't _that_ many worthwhile shops on that main street, and she had succeeded in not testing her brother's patience...not _too_ much.

She looked back to the rectangular shapes of shopping bags by the bed again. November had just started and all the stores were decked out in their holiday season decorations. Funny how they always did that the second Halloween was over. She didn't really mind. Nothing was on sale, though, which was a drag, and made her feel guilty for having Seventeen buy her some of the things she wanted (though he insisted). Christmas would be coming soon, just around the corner. Eighteen would _definitely_ be in shape by the time Christmas came around (but just in shape?). Would they get a tree? She couldn't remember a time when they had, but trusting the memories in her head wasn't such a good thing anymore, she'd learned. Getting presents for Sev was going to be the hardest task anyway, not because she didn't know what to get him, but because she didn't have any way to get them. For some reason, he frowned upon just _taking_ things now, and he was the only one with money. And he kept good track of it, too. Getting a job...feh. Getting a job...well...we'll see, she thought. Just thinking about stealing something for him made _her_ feel a little guilty. Why, though? _She_ was the older sibling! Don't the older siblings set the standards? Whatever. They had no parents to play around with that kind of stuff. It was just the two of them. It always had been. Just...him. And her.

(oh, yes, _now_ I'm starting to feel a little numb.)

She let out another slow sigh, trying to send out all her unceasing thoughts with a controlled exhale. Maybe it worked. Her eyelids began to feel heavier (maybe it's just the nanos he injected the other day...), and it was finally time to pull her leg back onto the mattress from its previous place dangling over the edge. It was just him and her, ordinary people now, regular people. People that had to _adjust_ instead of doing things their way and letting everyone _else_ figure it out.

(_che_...I can't bother to think about this anymore.)

* * *

_The bed's moving...why is the bed..._

Whatever it is that's capable of rousing partially enhanced humans out of bed before they mean to crawled into Eighteen's body the next morning and made her aware of the extra weight bearing down on her side of the bed. Shortly after becoming aware of this sensation, she felt the chill air of the poorly heated room sink into her skin. Her eyes slowly pulled open, and there he was, her dear obnoxious brother, his face hanging inches away from hers with a laughing grin on his face.

"Time to get up!"

"Ugggh..._mooove_," she whined, her expression souring as her hands rose to his chest. He did this, thankfully, not too often, reminding her of that bratty little boy side still in him. She expected him to resist and stay there laughing at her feeble attempts, maybe mess up her hair or yank the covers away for good measure, and she was not at all in the mood for such antics. In the mornings here it was always freezing and that made her cranky, and...and then she realized that she wasn't as groggy as she usually was. It wasn't as cold as she first thought, either. Eighteen pushed him off of her with an ease she wasn't used to (maybe because he let up on her too) and sat up, letting the blankets fall slack against her legs as she rested back against the wooden headboard. She raised a hand to her wrinkled brow as if to smooth it out, reaching back further to make sense of the blond mess of hair on her head after. Seventeen sat back on the edge of the bed, looking at her with an anxious expression, like some little boy about to blurt out _happy birthday_ to his mother or something. She glanced at him, befuddled (and slightly annoyed...almost), and then looked out the snow-frosted windows to her right. Did he _do_ something to her? She didn't feel the same. She felt _good_. No nagging hunger in her belly, no cramped muscles, no blurry eyes. She slipped her legs from out of the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, tugging down on the bunched up boxer shorts she was wearing.

Seventeen noticed that _she_ noticed, and had to admit she was being pretty cute now, fidgeting with herself like this, trying to figure out what he did to her. _This is better than I expected,_ he thought to himself with a grin. _I should've given her those nanomachines sooner. I could've pulled the rx-IN out earlier. But...I guess I did the right thing waiting till the experiments were done. She doesn't seem to be in as nearly a bad mood as I thought she was gonna be, either. She's not gonna want to go down to the lab now though, not this early..._

Eighteen looked over to her brother again, now standing (without her slippers on, for that matter) with her fingertips pressed against the cold windowpane. A hand ran through her hair, smoothing it out further, and then slipped to the nape of her neck, to the input jack which so often gave home to that little blinking cylinder.

It wasn't there.

She felt a rush inside her at this realization, something that coursed throughout her entire body, danced up her spine, that made her shiver. It was the sense of her own power, something once lost and faded away now returned. Her forehead touched the windowpane, one hand still against the glass, the other forming a fist by her side. As much as she wanted, at this moment, to hide it from her brother, she could not suppress the grin tugging at the corners of her lips. She squeezed her eyes tightly together and then turned to him, the grin changing into an all-out smile. It lit up her whole face and the urge to laugh overtook her. She hopped over to him, blue eyes wide, and wrapped her arms around his narrow body, yanking him up off the bed, off his feet entirely.

"Am I back to normal?" she practically squealed. She saw him hesitate in responding, just a moment, as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell her yes just yet, but then he couldn't help himself. He couldn't deny the elated look on her face.

"Yeah...yeah, you are. Almost," he laughed, looking down at her. She really did squeal this time and hugged him so tight he had to cough from it, one brow tugging low over his forceably squinted eye. "Don't get _too_ excited now, E. Put me down before you wear yourself out."

"No way..." she mused, setting him back on his feet with a confused, absent-minded expression on her face. "What'd you do to me? Where's the ar-ex?" Her brow lowered down flat across her eyes. "This isn't some joke, is it? Cause it'd be a real shitty one if it is..." Seventeen threw his head back with a laugh, one hand clapping on his forehead.

"Why would I do something like that to you?"

"Why _wouldn't_ you?"

"Knock it off, E. This is for real," her brother replied, with a tone serious enough to believe. But the beat he let pass and the little grin forming on his face was too much to ignore. He laughed at her expression and tossed his hands on her shoulders, giving them a firm shake. "My dear sister, rest assured, there is no prank being pulled on you." She still gave him a suspicious look. He only smiled back at her, though it was turning to another grin with every moment he delayed in telling her what was going on. "I took out the rx-IN after you fell asleep. Okay?" His brow perked at her, waiting for her response. She continued to wear a wary expression.

"But that's not all you did. Is it."

"Course not," he grinned. Irritation danced across Eighteen's eyes. "After I removed the ole' rx-IN, I gave you a juicy, new _nano_ injection," he continued, a reassuring look in his eye as he reached around to tap the invisible input jack on the back of her neck.

"Yeah? What _about_ these nanos?"

"They're _special_, you see. So special, I can't even explain them to you without a projector and a pie chart. At the _very_ least," he grinned. His fair-skinned sister rolled her eyes.

"Does this mean we have to go to the _lab_?" she groaned in realization.

"You got it!" Seventeen exclaimed, throwing his hands up over his head, gesturing at some imaginary studio audience. "Can we get this girl a prize?"

"Knock it off, nerdball," she groaned again. "_Cripes..._" Seventeen looked at her and laughed.

"Did you just say cripes?"

"Yeah? Is there something wrong with that?"

"Whoa. I, uh, guess not. Nothing wrong with _cripes_, ma'am," he replied, his hands held up to his chest defensively. Eighteen looked away, rolling her eyes. Guess he forgot about their little joke with that word. No, she had to remind herself. No, that was _before_.

She folded her arms and felt a curl in her lip come and go. Hopefully her brother wouldn't see it. He'd probably say something about it if he did, and she wasn't sure another one of their fights was something she wanted to go through at this time of morning. But if Seventeen's work was solid, and these nanos really did whatever job he meant them to do, then maybe she wouldn't mind fighting so much if she could hit him again. Yeah, they used to fight _a lot_ before...

_There she goes, thinking again_, he thought to himself with a brief frown. "Well I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" she said quickly, a little startled by the somber tone in his voice.

"To get your breakfast," he replied, a little less serious this time. Eighteen's brow perked. "You are still hungry, right?" She nodded. She was _quite_ hungry. Seventeen's face snapped into a light-hearted expression, and he was off, the sound of his familiar jogging down the stairs just another of the many new experiences Eighteen would come to refamiliarize herself with today.

* * *

Breakfast had been amazing. Food had never been _so good_ before, and to this she laughed openly, sharing all her thoughts with her brother. Everything was crisper, more vibrant, as if before today the world had been hiding under a grayer, duller version of itself. Now it was all alive, bright, and Seventeen could barely keep her in her seat after she'd finished eating. He thought about offering to get her slippers from upstairs for the trip down into his painfully frigid lab a level below, but the little curl in her lip and the anxious shake taking over her right leg told him it would be prudent to get her down there before she got ahead of herself. Or himself. Or things in general.

For a long moment, in that same short passage with which her brother contemplated the day's coming events with his newly re-juiced sister, Eighteen found herself being temporarily...dulled by the new world. Memories. There was something important there, lurking, something that needed to be thought about, but _that_ was just too out of focus. Too much to think about _now_, now that she was on the verge of life. _Freedom_. It was a little intimidating if she committed any thought to the fuller meaning of the word, a little too complicated for right now. But it was hard to ignore it. Freedom... Freedom from what?

She didn't think her brother was ever interested in the science that birthed the two of them. Well, he wasn't back then. Back then he was just worried about being bored. For a time, there was destruction. For a time there was sex. Everything was a twisted game and there had been _a lot_ of games played. But in all of the time they'd had to pass back then, Seventeen had never once shown an inkling of interest in their origins, in their science. To him, they were perfected beings. Eighteen never really disagreed with him back then, but she never quite bought into the notion that they were the new young gods. She didn't really _hate_ humans like he did. They were annoying for the most part, and she'd killed just as many as her brother (did she?), but thinking back on such far away memories now, she couldn't remember why she'd ever agreed to go on the rampage. Just because?

Things were...nicer here. Yeah, adjusting was a little difficult to do at first, but she liked this "normal" life. She loved her brother, more than anyone, and it was a peculiar but welcome change, the attitude of his personality here. No wild rants on their superiority or the mistakes Dr. Gero made in creating them. Her brother's arrogance was not overwhelming, merely another facet to his complex personality. Was he complex before? Was she? No, they weren't. They had been completely mindless.

Eighteen's face drew together as she tried to think about why. Memories. _Lots_ and _lots_ of dully surreal memories. The past; she _knew_ what she had done in that recent life. She remembered things. But it was all quiet. The sound was off. It was like watching the television on mute - you can see what's going on and understand the basic idea, but all the finer points are lost. _She had been a killer_. A murderer in a genocidal pair. And what of it now? She didn't remember their faces, their screams. Just that she had done it. A cold, hard fact, as unfeeling as the rusted spiral steps which brought her down to the laboratory.

If she was ever going to have a shred of compassion for her dead, it would be no time soon. With these fresh nanomachines, she could feel the shadow of a lost power looming behind her. But she was free. Free of the dark past, free of a feeble body. Today, if her brother's science held true, the world would change.

Today, for the first time in many droning weeks, the blond cyborg made her way down the narrow, shaky steps to her brother's livelihood, without the help of the slick railing. Walking in front of her as usual, Seventeen did not look back at his sister, though it was a bit of a challenge. The metallic shuffle of her nimble footsteps was confirmation. at least for now, that he didn't have to be so careful anymore, though he eventually did look back, just in time to catch her hoping over the last two dangerously rusted steps (which she'd always whined about him fixing). He'd always told her to just _wait_. Well, it was all over now. Maybe he'd even remove the stairs all together...

Eighteen made her way over to the pristine, agonizingly medical table and hopped up on the edge, much like she'd done so many times before (except without the agile little hop). Her brother's lab, as far as she was concerned, was an anomaly that conflicted with her brother's devil-may-care personality (_oh wait...that was the old one..._). The lab was pure, structured, and there was never anything out of its place. A mixture of unbroken silver lines and virginally white instruments. Containers were all beautifully clear. The aesthetic he'd created was amazing.

The lighting was sharp, quiet, and lacking the harsh cruelty of the only other lab the pair had known (though this was something Eighteen was yet to become fully aware of). Every time she came down here, no matter how cranky she'd been, the immaculate efficiency of it all would lull her in and make her forget. And as much as she disliked her brother's "checkups," the calm of the lab was always able to take her mind off the painful goings-on. She wondered now, if Seventeen was a rich man, would he decorate all of the house so precisely? _If he was a rich man ... The fact I even thought about that is more amazing than the nanos my brother created._

"So how'd you get me working again?" Eighteen watched as her brother moved around the sprawling quiet of the basement laboratory, turning monitors on and gathering a small collection of peculiar electronic instruments. Looked like there were some new ones in the bunch, now. Briefly he set everything down and hopped in front of one of several computer stations. That was the one with no mouse, which was troublesome for her because that was the "cool" computer, with the _big_ monitor. Seventeen had recently managed to alter things so that he didn't _need_ a mouse anymore - the computer would take input directly from him.

She watched briefly how the little white arrow followed his adept gaze and wondered if he was going to be able to do that now.

Finally, her brother returned to the table, where she'd taken up an idle swinging of her bare legs.

"Well?"

"What? How'd I 'fix' you?" he asked, a little grin at the corner of his lip. Eighteen gave a nod. His head canted to one side in a thoughtful motion, to which a long beat then passed. "I just did, I guess," he said finally, his voice carrying that gentle sedateness to it. "You really _were_ broken. At first, I thought that your previous nanos needed reprogramming, because hardly any of them were performing the duties necessary to maintain the generator in your body. They were barely keeping you alive, which I'm sure you already knew," he said, his gaze lingering on hers for a moment. Then he took one of the instruments he'd gathered off of the table and turned it on, holding it in front of her, the screen towards him. Eighteen thought it looked a lot like a pocket PC, but for what it was doing, she didn't think it was something you could buy off the market.

"Did you make that?"

"Modified," he said with a grin, his eyes steadily focused on the mini color screen before him. Eighteen smiled, amused at her brother's current fascination with the new data he was gathering.

"I didn't know my brother was some nerd IT specialist." Seventeen glanced up with a laugh.

"Blame it on Gero?" he answered with a shrug, then looked up at her again. "And you know, being a cyborg, it seems fitting I just know these things." Now his sister let up a short laugh. He went back to the recorder's screen. Looks like the nanos he built were still doing fine, which was what he'd expected. Finding out what they'd been busy doing from last night to this morning would come next. Again he glanced up at his sister's curious face.

"You know, you were really almost dead when I found you," he started, somber tone creeping into his smooth voice. "I think you _would_ have been dead if not for the new nanos in you that _were_ functioning properly. And I can't even say _that_" He shook his head. "It was only about four or five percent and they weren't even carrying out your generator's normal tasks. They were _just_ sustaining your ordinary life functions, your human ones. I mean, well... I can't be sure," he said again, shaking his head.

"Sure of what?" Eighteen replied. While not terribly surprising, this whole dead nano thing seemed to be a bit more serious than she anticipated. Seventeen put down the recorder and sighed.

"It makes the most sense, but I really doubt Gero ever programmed a survival mechanism like that. He made so many stupid mistakes with us in the first place, and I'm sure he was too concerned with our power and too confident we _wouldn't_ lose to worry about keeping us alive if we failed. I mean, he put _bombs_ in our chests, E. You _have_ to remember that much." Seventeen shook his head, disgust steadily seeping into his features. Eighteen found herself a little relieved to finally see her brother complaining about the good doctor.

"Yeah, Sev. I _do_ remember that," she said, lips drawn tight across her face in a thin line. Her brother drew in something of an exasperated breath and reluctantly picked up the recorder again.

"Anyway...what's more is that I never found any such kind of desperate survival programming in _my_ nanomachines."

"Well I always thought you were the prototype out of us two, and Gero decided because of how you were after to make me not as strong..."

"True, but...it just strikes me as odd. I wish I had kept more information on myself before I started upgrading, so I had something to compare you to." He paused, shutting off the recorder and setting it back down on the table beside her. "Anyway, you're lucky. I only built the rx-IN a few days before I found you for myself. I was getting too beat up at the tourneys lately and needed something to keep me going through the downtime. Imagine if I'd never met that sleaze ball promoter, Carrnaje. I woulda never built that thing and you would've died right after I found you."

"Oh, so am I supposed to be grateful now that you get your ass kicked on a daily basis?" Seventeen feigned an insulted posture and then gave up a lighthearted laugh.

"You're so mean to me. You're supposed to be my sister, E..."

"You are so lame, Seventeen," she laughed. "_So_ lame." Seventeen backed away from the table with his hands held defensively in front of him.

"Fine. I can go back upstairs if you wanna be like that." Eighteen snorted at her brother's words.

"No you _won't_. You're too excited to see how your little nanos are doing."

"You're kidding me," Seventeen shot back, looking insulted once more. "Hah. Watch if I ever do anything nice for _you_ again."

"Oh, shut up. You will," she said, grin forming on her lips. Seventeen looked at her for a long, defiant moment, and then picked his recorder back up.

"Can't fool you..." he muttered, walking off to plug the recorder into his mouseless computer.

* * *

After a few more tests and observations (none of which were nearly as bad as Eighteen anticipated), the darker haired sibling confirmed that his nanos were carrying on beautifully. He'd have to check on her every day for the next week or so, but this was definitely the start of something new.

When he had finished gathering all his information, Seventeen brought his sister over to his wundermachine computer and showed what exactly it was coursing through her bloodstream now.

She was _amazed._ Certainly, the fact she had never really been aware of what went on inside of her many fine, bionic augmentations in the first place led to an increased sense of awe. Not only had her brother reprogrammed the existing working nanomachines in her body to carry on their initial duties, but he had built and introduced an entirely new group of nanos. Really, they were just modified versions of the existing ones in her body, and partially based off of the ones in her brother's body currently, with a few extras here and there. They were entirely self-maintaining and self-replicating. The new nanomachines told the old nanomachines the new programming, and unified, they carried out all new tasks and routines, along with the old ones (though the old routines would eventually be weeded out for more efficient ones).

The nanomachines, in the time span of perhaps fifteen hours, had already constructed _several_ entirely new classes of cells in Eighteen's body, all of which would serve to make her stronger, faster, and more agile than before. The exact scientific explanation Seventeen gave her as to what exactly the new groups of cells did didn't really matter to her. She was going to grow more powerful with each passing second, even more so when she fought. The nanos would _learn_, they would increase her stamina, her senses, her overall prowess, and what's more is that they could even heal her to a certain extent.

Her "endless energy" generator had been fortified by the same nanos. It would run more efficiently, and was more in synch with her organic body than ever before. Previously, the nanomachines she had served only to keep her organic body on level with the unyielding, tireless energy her generator provided her with. When first making her a cyborg, if Gero had only put the generator in her and no nanos, her body would have long since tired itself out and fallen apart from the constant use, even with the nightly regenerative period of sleep, necessary of all humans. But with the nanos, her body could keep up. They would rebuild dead cells, replace them at an accelerated rate, and create new carrier cells so things like vitamins and hormones could reach what part of the body needed it more efficiently.

As Gero's cyborg, she never had to sleep again. Her muscles and bones had been fortified so she could punch through walls and rip through steel. She could even fly, through some strange mystic method of artificiality (something her brother admitted to still not figuring out - there was _one_ credit to the doctor).

Now she was her brother's cyborg, and she had become something _more._


	4. 04: renewal

"AUGH!" 

The snarling cry of the brunet cyborg rung out across the open field, a mere hot second after the sickening crack of skin against skin had echoed loud into the quiet winter sky around them. Eighteen strode over to her brother, who was now coming up from his embarrassing sprawl in the snow, with a deep grin worked into her features. She glanced at her upheld fist, slowly opening and closing it, a thorough feeling of satisfaction running through her blood. She tossed her hair back, laughing, unable to suppress her childlike glee, and looked back to her brother, now standing and trying to hide his hurt pride as he made his way back to his sister.

Since she'd gotten her "upgrade," as Seventeen put it, her brother had been taking her out to spar with him as soon as she'd passed the stabilization phase. Just about every day, they'd go out into the forest behind their beautiful abandoned mansion, to the clearing they were standing in now, and fight in the snow.

He went easy on her at first. That was to be expected. But they'd come in every morning with the untouched snow laid out before them, and leave afterwards with huge areas of it seared away, mixed with debris, and generally torn asunder. In the evenings, it would snow again to cover it all up (though sometimes it continued snowing right into the next morning -- something Eighteen came to love), and they would return the next day to a fresh arena.

Seventeen was a capable teacher. Once the nanos had established themselves in her, there was little else Eighteen had to do, though there were a number of new programs Seventeen had installed along with the nanomachines that were meant to be accessed. Of course, basic use manuals had been uploaded to her cyborg brain (which of course also received an upgrade), and she read them all, but there was a certain finesse to be gained when using her new abilities in real time during their sessions.

Eighteen had all _sorts_ of new goodies thanks to her brother. Her eyes, which had long since been augmented, were now outfitted with several new capabilities, again thanks to the nanos and her new applications. Before, she was only capable of storing the most basic of information, later to be accessed and projected onto the back of her retina. Now she was able to gather multiple streams of data, on all _kinds_ of subjects, and use them concurrently, _as_ she was fighting. The world was a beautiful place.

"Are you jealous?" She grinned, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her left ear. Seventeen tugged up his jeans with a scoff, giving her a light shove as they finally met.

"What would I be jealous of, E?" His steady blue eyes focused on her a little too intensely for Eighteen to take his lighthearted tone seriously. She gave him a look and laughed, walking past with a shrug.

"Looks like you _are_ jealous. You didn't expect me to be this good this fast, and now you're wishing you didn't give me so much cool stuff. Not all at once, at least..."

Her brother coughed up a laugh from somewhere in his chest, looking off to the side quickly after, as though the cough was to blame. Eighteen snickered and he looked back to her, his hands falling loosely onto the bones of his narrow hips. She reached out grinning and tapped his cheek.

"What's it matter if your nanos are better than mine? It's only fitting that my twin sister be as great as I am. If she's a _little_ stronger, that's okay with me," he said, finishing with a soft grin.

"Is that so?" Eighteen said, her own arms falling akimbo.

"Yeah, It's really okay," he responded in a smooth voice. A single blonde eyebrow popped up. Seventeen's lips pulled taut in a smirk. "Cause I'll just make better ones for myself." Eighteen balked at her brother's words, throwing her arms up.

"You little shithead! I should've known you'd say something _stupid_ like that!"

"_Little_ shithead!" Seventeen cried, bracing himself against hits and halfheartedly blocking against her slaps. But his sister was growing aggressive and he was getting tired quickly of being hit in the face, which seemed to be her favorite area of attack. He figured it had something to do with how she always called him a pretty boy, and that was just a tad vexing. Cause he _was_ pretty. What did she have against _that_?

Eighteen was starting to get frustrated now that her brother decided to really defend. He kept putting up his arms and redirecting her punches (to hell with the slapping, huh... though the sound was more satisfying), even though she was starting to get serious and use more of her strength, which was on par with her brother's, if not a touch more (praise be to the nanos). But Seventeen actually had techniques and a style, whereas his sister currently only had brute force and whatever she thought might work.

Seventeen had offered and she'd thought about downloading some martial arts programs, but they were only programs, reference information. She'd have to learn all that just like any normal human...though she did have the advantage of her nanos yet again, which, as cells, could retain a memory of movement. This wasn't exactly amazing -- humans did the same thing normally -- but Eighteen could do it at an accelerated rate. And learning fast in this continuously mysterious world was definitely an advantage.

Right now, though, Seventeen had her in his guard, and that was definitely a disadvantage. Usually, if you were good enough, Seventeen said, you could be done with your match quickly. But if it wasn't, you had to be prepared to go to the ground, just in case. Cause saiyans were pretty good grapplers, which was something Seventeen had learned the hard way. Most saiyans were pretty good at any kind of fighting, he had said to her with a sneer. This didn't surprise Eighteen; the handful of saiyans she'd known her now dreamlike memories had all been strictly fighters as well. Warriors, even, though she wouldn't relate that to her brother.

She'd have to get pretty good pretty fast if she was going to fight like her brother, she realized. Sitting around the house reading comics and catalogues or getting a normal, tedious _human_ job were really her only other options. So Eighteen was glad when her brother so easily encouraged her to become one of these "tournament" fighters like him.

She didn't quite know why she thought he wouldn't let her join him. Maybe it was because of the weeks he'd spent pampering her, or the fact that he didn't really talk about what he did while he was out. Then again, maybe _he_ was hesitant to tell her his "work" stories because of all the weird arguments they'd had over it before. It didn't really matter now. She was happy he'd so readily opened up this side of himself to her.

Although, right now, the fact she still hadn't passed his guard after five minutes was pretty disheartening. She could tell he wasn't even being serious either. Yeah, definitely have some more grappling time with dear brother. At least with standup fighting you could manage to do okay without any real moves...but that sort of thing didn't fly with ground fighting. You could get manhandled so easily...or at least with Seventeen. And this was him just messing around?

Too lost in her thoughts, Eighteen found she was on her way to getting armbarred a moment too late to have a chance of getting her arm out of it. Seventeen snickered at her, teasing as she grabbed her own hand to try and keep her trapped arm from slipping deeper into her brother's bite. For a moment it worked, but eventually Eighteen had to give up and tap out. She rolled off her back and sat up with a frown. Seventeen, who surely would've been winded if such a thing were possible, smiled brightly at his sister, sitting up himself to pat her on the back.

"You did good this time," he said reassuringly. Eighteen gave him a cynical look.

"Getting armbarred _again_ is considered good with you?"

"No," Seventeen smiled. (She was cute like this...) "But you're picking up on things quickly. You get noticeably better every time." Eighteen shot him another look. "And _no_, I mean even a normal person could tell," he said, a little chuckle coming out.

Eighteen sighed and flopped backwards into the cool snow. She was only wearing a long sleeved shirt and some thin black workout pants, but the cold of the snow was so subdued against her, it felt like she had a winter jacket on. Oh, the glorious freedom of these nanos! In a fit of glee she laughed out into the sky, kicking up her feet.

Seventeen, who was sitting back on his palms now, smiled at his sister. He didn't remember a time when she seemed so ... innocent? No, that wasn't the word he wanted. It felt like she'd broken out of her shell or that she'd only been half alive before (which was technically true). She wasn't an entirely different girl, but she just wasn't the same as he remembered; she was ... sweet, and less fraught with such intense passiveness. In a way it was intimidating, this refreshed version of her, because he could almost sense the independence steadily brewing. And though he knew it was always there, he wasn't used to it. Not yet. Nevertheless, he was very pleased he was able to make her so happy ... his sister. Back together again.

Eighteen had since surrendered herself to the chill calm of the snow beneath while her brother collected his thoughts. Both their sets of clear, snow-shadow eyes were up on the blue sky above, its wispy white clouds hanging dead in the air.

"I'm glad you're back," Seventeen said finally. Eighteen sat up slightly to look at her brother, brow gently perked in curiosity.

"What makes you say that?"

"What doesn't?" he said with a quiet, lopsided smile. Her eyes softened.

"Do you think about that a lot?" she asked, her voice a gentle smoothness.

"Every day," he replied, his gaze steady on her. "Why? You don't?"

"I do ... But I wonder if we think about the same thing."

"What ... do you mean?" Eighteen looked back up to the sky shrugging her shoulders at her brother's question.

"Well _I_ don't know. It's just a feeling."

"Yeah? What kind of feeling?"

"I dunno ... I guess like you care about this a little more than I do."

"What do you mean by 'this'?" Seventeen asked with a quiet suspicion. Eighteen glanced back at her brother with another light shrug.

"Like ... I'm back. I've _been_ back. We talk about this almost every day, I think. It's like you can't get over it, either. I _am_ back, Sev. I'm not going to go anywhere or disappear again or whatever. I'm back. We're together again, and ... I don't know. That's it, I guess." Eighteen looked over at her brother yet again. He stared back at her for a long moment, his smooth face unreadable, and she hated that.

"So ... what kind of point are you trying to make, E? That you don't like it when I tell you I miss you or something?"

_No_, that's not it. Just that ..."

"Just that what? There's not much else to it, really," Seventeen said abruptly. Eighteen's shoulders bunched up immediately to her brother's tone, her lip twitching into a curl.

"That's _not_ what I meant, Sev. Why don't you calm down a little, huh? I'm just _talking_ to you. You don't need to go jumping to any conclusions ... and over what, I have absolutely no clue, either. It's nice to know that you missed me, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. But I guess it gets on your nerves to hear me say it so much, right? Cause that's what you just said to me."

"_What_? No I _didn't_."

"Oh, you didn't. Okay. I see. So if I told you that, after you thought I was _dead_ and then found me again, it was getting a little old to hear you saying how much you missed me and were glad to have me back, you wouldn't feel a little offended by that?"

"_No_. Why would I?" Seventeen looked at his sister for a beat and scoffed, an incredulous look in his eye.

"No, Eighteen. That's not the right answer. It's who _wouldn't_ be offended to hear something like that?"

"Hey, Sev. Calm dow -- "

"_No_, Eighteen. You should really listen to what just came out of your mouth. You just now told me that, while it's nice and happy to know that I miss you, you really don't want to hear it anymore. It's lame."

Eighteen stared at her brother, waiting for him to continue, her brow raised up irritably high.

"Now what the fuck does that mean exactly, E? Listen to yourself! You basically just told me you don't give a shit! You don't _like_ it when I say I've missed my own sister, who I thought was _dead_ and _gone_? You think that it's corny or something? What the _fuck_?

"Shut UP and let me TALK for a minute, Seventeen!" Her brother scoffed again and impatiently gestured for her to speak. Eighteen found the sudden silence he'd given her more irritating than anything. She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts, to think of something to get him to shut the hell up and stop jumping to conclusions ... but she was struggling.

"That's what I thou -- "

"Shut _UP_," she snapped, eyes shooting open to glare at him. "Now ... _listen_ to me, Seventeen." The older twin looked to her brother and waited for him to settle, which he thankfully did, if only through the slight ease of his posture. "Okay. Now, I _am_ glad when you tell me those things. I like it. It makes me feel loved. But ... it's like you are _always_ telling me that stuff and nothing else, like you can't get over it.

"What? What the fuck else am I supposed to think about?"

"I dunno! Your next match or some shit! I didn't realize you were such a needy little baby and needed me to tell you how much I missed you every day, Sev! You _have_ to stop obsessing over me!"

"_What?_"

"You _heard_ me."

Seventeen slapped her, a gasp of shock instantly silencing the room. Her hair had fallen into her face. She turned her head slowly and looked at him, a wild, reeling churning behind her widened eyes. He looked less angry than she expected, for that, and he stared her down with crossed arms. Seventeen's dark eyes narrowed, his voice suddenly snapping with a spiteful rumble.

"You _stupid bitch_."

Hateful eyes. He turned on a heel, and left the room.

Eighteen could only sit there, stupidly sit there, as she replayed what had just happened in her head. She was frozen. She was bewildered. She was hurt. Wide eyes started to wilt with emotion. She reached up to touch the spot near her temple, where his hard, sound palm had struck.

Seventeen appeared in the doorway. Eighteen froze. Their eyes met. He looked too distraught for his menacing, raised-shoulder posture. Brow twisted.

"E, I..."

"Get AWAY from me!"

Her shriek hit him like a shock of cold water. His eyes widened as he took a step towards her, but she tensed and threw up her hands. Seventeen halted, then turned. And left. She didn't pay mind to his apologetic face, and not until she saw him leave the house entirely did she unlock from her frozen posture.

He _never_ hit her like that before. Not outside of play or sparring, not in anger like that. She was annoyed, but could make no excuses for her words. Regret. The look on his face when he left wasn't worth it. Still...he _hit_ her. And why she didn't just hit him back, she couldn't say. Only that this wasn't over something petty, and maybe, maybe she deserved it.

The rest of Eighteen's night was spent alone. He didn't come back.

* * *

The next morning, Eighteen woke up with her brother's arms wrapped around her. At first, she thought nothing of it (she liked to be held at night sometimes, and she hadn't asked him for a while now), but the bitter memory of the night prior returned to her quickly enough. She unclasped herself from his stubborn embrace and gingerly turned to her other side to face him. There was a troubled expression etched deep into his smooth, boyish features, and perhaps unconsciously realizing he didn't have her anymore, his brow winced further down.

She felt wildly sorry in that moment and wanted to apologize for ever upsetting him so badly. But the thought was easily countered by a flash of his furious eyes and the dark sound of his spiteful voice. The lighter-haired twin turned onto her back with a sour grimace. For that troubled sleeping face of his, she wanted only to remove it. The idea that, when he awakened, she would comfort his frayed nerves, was nice to her and almost whimsical. But when she looked at him she could only replay the deep-rooted spite in his voice; he _meant_ to upset her.

Seventeen had inched his way closer again, throwing an arm and a leg across her body as he nuzzled her shoulder. What, did he sense her frustration? Was he doing this on purpose to pacify her? She looked to his face for any sign he was awake. There was nothing.

Eighteen sat up on the edge of the bed, hoping her brother wouldn't sense her distance and awaken. Not yet. She wasn't in the right mindset to deal with whatever he had to say. But she didn't want to leave the room, or him. It was too warm to leave, too peaceful and melancholy to desert.

She got up and started to pull her sweater on when she realized she didn't need it, even though her breath came out in wispy white puffs before her. Did he "upgrade" her while she was asleep last night, or was she doing that well on her own? Eighteen walked over to the window doors that faced their broken balcony, and pulled her arms across her chest.

Her eyes searched for something, down on the snow-covered yard below. A lonely feeling was wrapping itself around her enhanced heart, and the nearly forgotten, nagging feeling that things still weren't all right, began to overtake her mind. For all the high possibility there was that her memories were false, the reality of her world now was still almost too surreal. Something was so clearly different between them. A dangerous stranger? Why had Seventeen never experienced any false memories? What if he did and wasn't aware? What if the fights weren't real?

_Too dangerous_, she suddenly thought to herself. If Eighteen let herself dwell on something that felt so treacherous just in thought, it certainly wouldn't be good if it showed in her actions. And he would find out, somehow. Her twin. Her savior, her obligation. Undoubtedly, she loved him. But...could she trust him?

Her body jumped; two lithe arms slinking around her waist. Seventeen sighed against her, squeezing her tightly as if to apologize for causing her troubled thoughts. She hoped he didn't sense the spike in her adrenaline level.

"What's this for?" she asked softly, placing her hand over top one of his wrists. He shrugged against her.

"You know ... " came her brother's hushed voice.

"Do I?"

"I ... hope so," he replied. Eighteen felt a starburst of anger in her chest, that he should sound so goddamn sad when _he_ started this in the first place. But she couldn't be mad, couldn't even force herself to, not when he was like this; no attitude, no snide remarks. Just a quiet, regretful boy trying to show he was sorry. She sighed.

"Come on," she said, taking his hand. "I want to lay down still."

"Okay ... "

Eighteen regarded him with a frown as they climbed back into bed.

"What is it?"

"Nothing to worry about, Sev." She pulled the heavy comforter over their heads.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." He looked at her with worried, imploring eyes and she clicked her tongue. "Come here, stupid." Eighteen pulled him into her arms. He nuzzled against her shoulder, arms wrapping tight around her.

"I'm so sorry, E ... " She sighed at his broken voice, and dearly hoped he wasn't doing this to make _her_ feel bad.

"You don't have to say anything, Seventeen. It was my fault ... "


End file.
